Last New Years I made a few little resolutions, which I can honestly say I have kept throughout all of 2007. One of them was to make at least one new recipe a week, rather than sticking with the tried and true that I knew my family would eat. I pushed their boundries this year, making things I wasn't sure they would eat, regardless of the outcome. Which means there were a few things that I had to either eat myself or throw out. On the other hand, my children have expanded their own comfort zones a bit - they will now eat Butter Chicken and Naan, and my oldest will now eat Talapia.

There are alot of things I would like to try in the new year - learning more about Indian food and perhaps getting my family to try some more vegetarian style meals. Progressing further in my cake decorating, maybe even getting to go back to classes for it! Pushing some more of my own cooking and baking comfort zones. And while I explore new foods and techniques, I plan to have my camera along with me, taking more and more pictures as I go along.

And in this house, the turkey still has a name and is walking around somewhere, glad to have survived Christmas dinner intact.

And while that smelly bird strutted his stuff in a large pen with others (I've been involved in a turkey harvest - they smell and they strut and they are dumb!) we enjoyed a completely different Christmas dinner entirely, where the cow was not so well off as the turkey was.

I planned my Christmas dinner some time back, probably in late October or November, whenever the December 2007 issue of Fine Cooking made it to my door. The beef tenderloin on the cover made me drool and glad I was not a vegetarian. It's simplicity also appealed to me, though the price of a good beef tenderloin made me shudder. It's not often a 30 pound turkey would be cheaper than buying a small piece of beef. Yet despite this, I forged ahead with my plan and carefully put aside this magazine where I could find it again (which I actually did!)

This beef was amazingly good. It was so tender you could cut it with the side of your fork. The seasoning was perfectly matched to the beef, though not overpowering. It was good hot or cold, and still wonderful the next day as leftovers.

My plate styling, however, was not so good. So forgive the picture and just take my word for it - this beef was great!

I had made the creamy mustard sauce included in the recipe, replacing the cream fraiche with sour cream when I could not find any. It was alright but certainly not needed with such a flavorful beef. I think if I were to make it again, I would use a grain mustard instead.

Mashed potatoes accompany the photo on the cover, but I didn't want those. I wanted a potato and fennel gratin I had seen on The Barefoot Contessa, and when I was actually able to find the recipe online, cheered! The fresh fennel in the gratin was going to be a nice side to the crushed fennel seeds on the beef. In fact, it was a wonderful accompaniment. Made in advance so that all I had to do on Christmas Day was to throw it in the oven, it was creamy and mild and delicious. Word of warning though - if you make it in advance, don't be surprised if your potatoes look greyish underneath the cheese and cream. Don't worry, that disappears during baking.

To go with my beef tenderloin and potato fennel gratin, I oven roasted some fresh, sweet carrots, and white asparagus. I hadn't planned on white asparagus but that was all that was available at the stores. The white was a bit too woody, though still tasty, and the carrots were so sweet and soft that they melted into your mouth.

Dessert had to be a made in advance affair. Nothing too fancy, nothing over the top. Not with the piles of chocolate that filled the stockings, and bowls of candy scattered around the house. With those requirements in mind, I chose to make some mini tarts, almost cheesecake like, decorated with fresh fruit. I found the recipe for these little bites on Joy of Baking, when looking for some other recipe. The bases, a shortbread cookie dough tart, could be made in advance, as could the lemon filling, freeing me up to enjoy time with my family on Christmas Day. A quick five minutes with my pastry bag and some fruit and I had a pretty plate of dessert. Served along side some of the other goodies I'd made in advance (sugar cookies, ginger cookies and caramel shortbread squares), the only thing I needed to do was put on a pot of tea.

I was very pleased with Christmas dinner this year. Everything was either made in advance or required only a little bit of prep work a few hours in advance. Nothing required standing over the stove at the last minutes. There was no rush to get a gravy gone while everything else stood by and got cold. I even had time to set the table early.

I hope everyone else had as lovely a Christmas meal as we did.

(I've just discovered that despite having used the sugar cookie dough severaltimes in the life of my blog, I have never put the recipe up anywhere. I think I will have to go look for it and post about it tomorrow, as well as the recipe for the caramel shortbread squares.)

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 375F.In a small bowl, combine the olive oil, rosemary, fennel seed, salt and pepper. Stir to make a paste. Pat the beef dry with paper towels and rub the paste all over the surface of the meat. If necessary, tie the roast at 1 1 /2 inch intervals. (The roast can be seasoned and refrigerated up to 4 hours in advance.)Put the roast on a rack on a small, rimmed baking sheet or in a shallow roasting pan. Roast until an instant-read thermometer inserted in the center reads 120F for rare, 125-130F for medium rare, or 135F for medium, 40-50 minutes.Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk together the creme fraiche, mustard and lemon juice. Season lightly with salt to taste.Transfer the roast to a carving board (preferably with a well for collecting juices) and let it rest, uncovered for 10-15 minutes before carving it into 1/3 - 1/2 inch thick slices. Serve the beef, passing the mustard sauce at the table.

So how many candies did you nibble on while making your gingerbread creation this year? I can honestly say none, though I can't say the same for my children, who had already gone through half of this tray before I took the picture. With icing.

And while they worked on their gingerbread train, I decorated a little extra treat to bring to a friends house - a cupcake tree! This was alot of fun, and a huge hit with the kids at the party!

But Christmas Eve would not be complete without a treat left out for Santa, who really does need to remember that calories don't count! Each of my children picked a cookie for Santa, from a large selection that I had made and decorated, and picked the only two snowflakes in the entire box that had blue on them. Go figure.

In case you are wondering - we leave out an apple instead of carrots for the reindeer. We figure after everyone else has left them carrots, they could use a little something different. They must have loved it because the only thing left this morning was a few seeds!

Oh, and Santa actually prefers Chocolate milk over white, but Mrs. Claus limits him. Not in this house though! He drank it down to the bottom, leaving an empty cup, a few crumbs, and lots of presents!

Yes, it is indeed that time of month again, a bit early, when the food blogging world is enveloped in the creations of the Daring Baker's. I think it is safe to say that this can be the favorite time of month for many blog readers, who look forward to learning the secret recipe and seeing how different our identical recipe will turn out.

Oh boy are they in for alot of variations this month!

Now I can't recall how it came about, but instead of having one new Daring Baker host this month's challenge, we instead were treated to a double hosting by none other than our wonderful and fearless leaders, Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice, and Lis of La Mia Cucina! And they had a quite the challenge for us - A Yule Log!

Not just any yule log though, one made with a genoise cake, a meringue buttercream and either maripan or meringue mushrooms! Lots of steps, lots of ways to make the logs our own!

I decided to make mine a bit early, as usual, with an occasion in mind - parent teacher interviews and a teacher dinner. A few times a year, on nights when our schools teachers are going to be there quite late, a few of us volunteers donate various items and provide a meal for them. Call it a pot luck where we don't stay and eat anything. I volunteered to bring a dessert and took advantage of the opportunity to make my yule log early.

Which is where the "tale" of buttercream comes in. Get cozy, we are going to be here awhile....

I swear I almost pulled out my hair and gave up buttercream frostings forever! I kept having to remind myself, "Self! You have made croissants from scratch! You survived the dreaded crepe cake and lived to go on to puff pastry and cream puffs! You've made caramel swirls and twirled lots of hot sugar! There is not way a silly buttercream is going to defeat you now!"

My first attempt had me running to Tartlette for help. And help she tried, but that buttercream when into the garbage with a clunk!

Can you see the picture? Doesn't it look awful? For this one I believe my butter was still not warm enough, and I may not have heated my egg whites quite high enough (though after this attempt, Tartlette was kind enough to post the temperature we were aiming for on the DB blog, for all of us, which is 140F, btw.)

My next batch didn't even get a picture, but instead was poured down the drain with a plop, plop, plop.

Six sticks of butter wasted, so far. More out on my counter warming up to room temperature.

This awful picture is attempt #3. It was made the morning I needed to bring the Yule log into the school, on a day when I had to work all day and would have no time to run home and finish a dessert. Instead I took my cake, already filled with a chocolate ganache, rolled and cut, my lovely little meringue mushrooms (which were fun to make), an emergency batch of regular cake buttercream (icing sugar, chocolate and shortening), and some tools with me to work, along with this batch. I had hopes that a bit of a chill and then some hand mixing, might fix things a bit.

As you can see by the dark color of my log, so lovingly adorned with my cute mushrooms and dusted with "snow", it was a good thing I had that emergency icing with me. One more meringue buttercream down the drain. Four more egg whites gone, another 3 sticks of butter.

That's a full dozen eggs, 9 sticks of butter, and 3 cups of sugar, gone. If you are keeping track. I was. I was running out of ingredients and frankly, confidence and patience!

Tartlette was a very understanding lady, trying her best to see me through it, but my buttercreams were not cooperating! And I was getting angry and more and more stubborn about this - NO BUTTERCREAM IS GOING TO DEFEAT ME!!!

So I decided to break the rules and go looking for another meringue buttercream recipe. I was sure that Lis and Ivonne would be forgiving of me. Afterall, it's not like I didn't try. So who else would I turn to but Dorie for help? Yes, sure enough, there is one listed in Baking From My Home to Yours.

And you know what? Her recipe is identical in ingredients to the one we were using, except for the flavorings and .... I'D MADE IT BEFORE!!!!

So here I was, pulling out my hair, angry and frustrated and throwing ingredients down the drain trying to make a frosting, thinking I am a failure at a meringue buttercream when I wasn't. I was just missing a step or two.

As most of the Daring Baker's know now, the buttercream will curdle sometime while you are adding the butter in. Don't panic! It's okay! Just keep adding and when you are done, turn the mixer speed up and walk away for a few minutes! Let it mix and come together!

Which is what I did the next day, the day after I had committed to bringing in a lovely dessert to my children's school. Sure, they got a pretty yule log (and were highly complimentary about it the next day when I was in for my own interviews,) but it was not what I had planned or wanted to bring in. And of course now I had a batch of meringue buttercream and no yule log. No problem, however, as I had also committed to chocolate cupcakes with a chocolate frosting to my children's Tae Kwon-do Christmas party and now had a lovely, smooth, and light buttercream with which to decorate with.

I still had a need to make a "proper" yule log, and did just this past Thursday, with the help of my husband, for his work Christmas pot luck lunch. And this time my buttercream came out exactly as it was supposed to, the first and only time I had to make it! Yahoo!

I liked the mushrooms on this one better, and was happy to hear that many of my husband's co-workers though they were real mushrooms, decorating the dessert he had brought! Hehehe I knew they looked good but didn't think they looked that good!

And what I have learned from all of this? Well, first of all, I already knew I was stubborn. Now I know that I am VERY stubborn. I can pipe a mean mushroom, and can roll up a pretty cool Yule Log.

I also learned, when there was a small piece left over from the pot luck that I got to try, that I do not like this recipe. Lots of people ate it, and enjoyed it. I found it dull and boring, especially considering the work I put into it. Yes, the cake was moist and light. As was the buttercream, a fluff of chocolate (this one had been flavored with a 100g bar of Lindt 70% chocolate, so it was not lacking in chocolate flavor.) I just didn't enjoy the flavor.

Maybe it was tied to my emotions throughout the process. After the turmoil I'd experienced trying to get a finished product, I needed it to taste like the most amazing thing I had ever eaten!

Oh well, what are you going to do?

Personally, I'm going to now direct you over to the Daring Baker'sBlogroll, where you can link to up to 400 other yule log baking experiences! For the recipe to make your own, be sure to visit either Lis or Ivonne.

I haven't disappeared, I've just been up to my elbows and nose in icing sugar and cocoa. Bob, my well loved stand mixer, has been working non-stop, yesterday alone going through 7 washings in one day for his bowl. I think he is getting a little tired and is looking forward to a break, though he's got awhile to go before he gets one.

In the meantime, here is a lovely little recipe I threw together last month for dinner. About the same time I made this, several other blogs were also featuring the same thing - we must have all been longing for summer and bbq at the same time, hence the abundance of pulled pork sandwiches.

My sandwiches started with an inexpensive pork roast in my slow cooker, drenched in a sauce I threw together using the ketchup I had made during the summer time. Several hours later, the succulent meat fell apart at a touch of the fork and was stuffed into soft buns and enjoyed along with corn on the cobb and homemade coleslaw, more memories of summer.

With the mountains of snow outside my door right now, I sure could use some summer right now!

I am dentist phobic. Seriously phobic. Except with my dentist. Him, I like. And his staff, omg they are the best!

I've had alot of dental work done in the last few years, way more than anyone would like. So it helps if you like your dentist if they are going to spend alot of time in your mouth. (Okay the nitrous gas helps too.)

During one of those long, long visits, a few of us were talking cakes and baking. I think I had just brought them a baked treat, which is how we got onto the conversation of baking. Somewhere in that, I was jokingly asked to bring in a carrot cake for my dentists birthday (which was 11 months away or so.) I said I would, but I don't think he took me seriously. No one did, until I walked in with a cake for him. (A few days late though, as I was sick for the proper day, and it turns out he was as well.)

Since I've brought in a few home baked treats to the office, expectations are high when I walk in now. Everything I have made has been very well received and highly complimented. So where else would I turn when I wanted to make a "tada!" type of carrot cake than to Dorie? Dorie wouldn't let me down by giving me a recipe for a dry and dull cake, no way would she!

No, instead she gave me a moist, flavorful and huge cake that allowed me to bring in a two layer to the office and still have a layer left at home for my poor, deprived children who never get any baked goods from their mother. (Yes, I know, I can hear you giggling now.) The frosting was creamy and eat-with-a-spoon good, as well as being plentiful.

I only made one small change to this recipe, omitting the nuts from it. I did add a bit more coconut and raisins to compensate, but not so much that I measured. Half a handful maybe.

I am going to make this cake again. My 8 year old has already asked if I will make it again, but make him a full 3 layer, or maybe a 5 layer, version. This cake is so huge that I think he will have to be happy with the 3 layers.

I'm not going to spend the next 10 minutes typing up the recipe for this carrot cake for anyone. It's in Dorie's Baking From My Home to Yours. And if you don't already have a copy, first of all, why the heck not? and second, why not buy a ticket for Menu for Hope and put your ticket in the draw to win an autographed copy of Dorie's book? I live too far away to win the chance to have her deliver it in person, but envy the person who gets to visit with her.

If you happen to live somewhere around me (okay, in Canada anywhere), head on over to The Domestic Goddess and see what we get to purchase our tickets for. Personally, I am liking the looks of the oil and vinegar set.

The flu has been going through my house, starting with me and lasting a very long time, but so far skipping the children. So far.

It's been an odd flu, with no fever, but alot of stomach problems, making food, all food, yuck! And while normally if I am sick that I don't want to eat, I still enjoy reading about food. Not this time. This time I posted an apology to my fellow Daring Baker's, that I would not be immediately reading all their wonderful bread posts until much later. It's much later and I barely feel I have made a dent in getting to the 400 or so posts that were made. (I think I'll either be at it all month or I will peter out in a few days.)

So this flu not only made me sick as could be, made me late for admiring my fellow bakers bread, but it also resulted in my missing a few blog events (I have a great carrot cake that was supposed to be submitted for Leslie's SHF) and nearly making me late for others. Fortunately I made my choice for Peabody's housewarming before I got sick and am now in good shape to "deliver" it to her lovely new home!Chicken and broccoli puff pastry pockets are my choice for the party. Good to eat either warm or cold, with your hands or dainty with a fork, and easy to make with ingredients I happened to have on hand. (Which reminds me that I need to replenish my freezer supply of puff pastry!)

I served these for dinner along with fresh fruit skewers, and enjoyed them cold for lunch the next day. My husband enjoyed them but the kids did not. Just goes to show that they have no taste at all as there was nothing in them that they didn't like.

Mix all the filing ingredients together in a bowl while the oven preheats to 400F. Taste and adjust seasonings as necessary. (I should point out that this filling would also be great in a sandwich at this point.)

Roll out the puff pastry so that it is large enough, and thin enough, to allow for 8 squares to be cut. (Sorry, I didn't think to measure.) I got 8 squares per package of dough. Spoon a heaping spoonful into the middle of the pastry, fold over and pinch edges to seal. Bake for 25 minutes, until golden brown. There will likely be a bit of left over filling.

That's how my picky 8 year old described this meal, something I made a few weeks ago. The Barefoot Contessa recipe for parmesan chicken sticks, along with buttermilk mashed potatoes and sauted peas and carrots.

He even watched me making them and was surprised to see how flour, eggs and breadcrumbs could turn into something so tasty. The science of it fascinated him enough that he said he'd actually like to make these with me sometime. (Course when I do try and get that help, he will likely have forgotten and be unwilling to help.)

Lay the chicken breasts on a cutting board and slice each diagonally into four or five large strips.

Combine the flour, slat and pepper on a dinner plate. Beat the eggs with i tablespoon of water on a second plate. Combine the bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese on a third plate. Dredge the chicken breasts on both sides in the flour mixture, then dip both sides into the egg mixtgure and roll in the bread crumb mixture, pressing lightly to coat.

Heat 1 tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a large saute pan and cook the chicken strips on medium low heat for about 3 minutes on each side, until just cooked through. Don't crowd the pan. Add more butter and oil and cook the rest of the chicken breasts. Optional Serve each strip on a skewer or stick.

You can keep the chicken breasts warm for about 15 minutes on a sheet pan in a 200 degree oven.

It's that time of month again, where the food blogging world is alive with posts all making the same recipe. This month the hens went on strike, and the cows needed some time off, so no mountains of eggs, and no vat loads of heavy cream were used in the creation of what might end up being 400 loaves of Tender Potato Bread, all courtesy of the Daring Bakers! That's right, the Daring Bakers have grown to the 400 number, and while not everyone did this month's challenge recipe, I am sure I am not the only person who made more than one batch of it.

We owe this months' recipe to Tanna, our hostess for the month of November. She challenged us to follow the recipe exactly, to a certain point, and then let loose the Daring Baker in us and see what we could come up with.

What I came up with was one very huge loaf of bread. And I do mean HUGE!

My bread baking experience started with a question - how many ounces in a pound? It's 16, btw, in case you didn't know. So for me, 1 1/2 potatoes was enough to get me between the 8 and 16 ounce guideline given to us for the quantity of potato needed for the recipe. I am so glad that weight was given, because if I had followed the 4 medium potatoes, I'd have had over 3 pounds of potato in my bread! And that would have been way too much!

Yes, this dough was a bit sticky, but other than that, it was nice to work with. It rose nicely, it baked up quickly and with a good crust, and it tasted mighty fine, warm, slathered with butter.

I wish I could say I enjoyed it the next day, but I didn't. I guess I am an eat bread warm from the oven kind of girl. Oh well.

Seeing as this was my challenge recipe, I did have to make it more than once. (Okay, maybe have to is a bit strong - I wanted to.) So last week I pulled out my potatoes and got working on a second batch of the bread, making a very large Focaccia instead of a loaf, studded with lots of scallions, and topped with fleur de sel and freshly ground black pepper, which I served with a homemade cauliflower soup. (Sorry, all my pictures for that one turned out blurry and boring, so no pictures!) Fingers of the focaccia were perfect for sopping up the soup.

I'm not sure if I will make this bread again, it will go into the "Maybe" tab of my Daring Bakers' recipe binder. While we enjoyed the flavor of it warm, after the first day no one in my house ate it. The children, who had inhaled it the first night, each took a bite the next day then turned up their noses and asked for something else. Feed back from my test guinea pigs (friends) was favorable, even for the next day, unless I am making it for a large crowd, I can see alot of bread going to waste.

Many thanks to Tanna for this month's recipe, not something I would have thought to try on my own. Be sure to check out as many of the other Daring Baker'sblogs as you can, before you get sick of bread!

I'm sure I'm not the only one who was caught off guard yesterday by the announcement of the Daring Baker'sFirstBirthday!

Sure, I've been a Daring Baker since January, but back then we were just a bunch of gals baking croissants together on one day. We didn't actually get the name Daring Baker's until later. Which is probably what threw me when I read both Ivonne and Lis' posts (plus saw Lis' lovely cake on the DB blog - and I so do think you could have made that Lis!)

There is no way I could let the occasion pass by without some sort of treat, even if that treat was going to be a day late!

So before he left this morning, I told my husband I was going to make a cake for the Daring Baker's and what kind would he like? He was very thoughtful for awhile and then finally said, "Lemon. Hey, I didn't pick black forest!" (And I guess it says a little something about our relationship that he did not even bat an eye when I said I was going to make a birthday cake for my online baking group.)

I doubt he is expecting this as a lemon cake though - Lemon Souffle Cake from Tish Boyle's The Cake Book. He only said lemon, he didn't say anything else, so I'm sure he is expecting a layer cake with icing rather than a lighter than air souffle that has to be scooped out of the pan. But this is about the Daring Baker's, part of which is trying new things and stepping outside of our comfort zones. My comfort zone had never made a souffle before, let alone a souffle cake, so lemon requirement met, that's what I chose to make!

That's my piece in the picture, which I'm not finished eating, so speeding things up here -

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 325F. Butter the bottom and sides of an 8 inch square baking pan.In a medium bowl, stir together the sugar, flour and salt - set aside.In another bowl, whisk together the egg yolks, sour cream, melted butter, lemon zest and lemon juice until blended. Pour this mixture over the dry ingredients and stir until blended.In the bowl of an electric mixer, using the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites at medium low speed until frothy. Gradually increase the speed to high and beat until the whites just form stiff peaks. Do not overbeat. Gently fold the beaten whites into the batter. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan.Place the baking pan in a roasting pan or larger baking pan. Pour enough hot water into the roasting pan so that it comes 3/4 inch up the sides of the square pan.Bake the cake for 30-35 minutes, until it is puffed and set in the center. Remove the pan from the water bath and place it on a wire rack. Let the cake cool for 10 minutes before serving.To serve, cut the cake into squares. Scoop each square onto a plate and serve immediately.

Still no new lens for my camera, so still taking pictures from the other side of the room, but I think I am working out some bugs. Can't wait to be able to take major closeup pictures (so you buggers who keep outbidding me on ebay for my lens - CUT IT OUT!!!)

However, the loss of that last auction did not stop me from making this cake, a major blast from my youth, earlier in the week - German Chocolate Cake. The same one that the dangerous trio of Tartelette, Lis and Mary made together when they had their amazing gathering.

After seeing the picture of it in Lis' blog, I bugged Tartelette for the recipe, which she very quickly provided for me. Oh yippee!

My mother and I think my grandmother used to either make or buy German Chocolate Cake with brown sugar coconut icing. At least that's what I remember being in it (and it was my most favorite part of the cake.) So I skipped the peacans in the recipe and upped the coconut some, and enjoyed it with these mini bundts of the cake. (Aren't mini bundts cute?)

Now if you look at the other pictures, the one on Lis' blog, and the one on Mary's, you'll see they each have a chocolate glaze over their cake first. I don't know where it is in the recipe, nor have I ever had it with a glaze before. So mine doesn't have one. Instead each piece I had involved lots of the coconut icing. Yum. Yum. Yum!

This cake was a little dry for me, but it could have been my over baking, this being the first time I've used the pans. The batter is almost moose like, which I found odd, but it seems to work. And the icing is to die for!

So thanks Tartelette! It's taken me all week to blog about the cake, but I feel slightly better now and I'm sure the cake didn't hurt!

So I have received a "new" camera, a digital SLR which I am very much enjoying taking pictures with. Not the camera I really want, but one that will do me well for awhile.

It has one small problem right now - the lens that I have is a 40-150mm zoom lens, which means I can take great distance pictures, but have a bit of an issue taking up close pictures. Every "close up" picture I have taken so far has been done from a distance!

Here are two pictures I have taken this week, both items I made, and the fun story of how I managed to get the shots.

First, broccoli soup, dinner.

I really wanted to make a broccoli soup for dinner for some reason. Not sure why, especially since my 3 boys are not huge fans of most soups, even less so when it is dinner. I, on the other hand, like the warmth of a good soup for dinner, with nice bread. Most of the time I respect their preferences and don't make soup, or if I make it, make it for lunch, but occasionally I do my own thing and they live with soup for dinner.

I did some web surfing for a good recipe and did not find any one recipe that grabbed me. But it did confirm that I already knew what was supposed to be in my soup, so I just made it up as I went along. And actually wrote down what I did (I'm trying to make this a new cooking habit.)

I accidentally over salted my soup, but even that was not noticeable once I added some shredded cheddar cheese to the soup. And like most soups, it tasted better the next day - I just finished the last bowl for my own lunch today.

So taking this picture wasn't too horrible - I placed it on my dining room table with as much light as I could get (it is now getting dark very early here.) Then I stood as far back as I could in my dining room and tried to get a good picture. It's not a huge room, so I was limited for space. With nothing but a zoom lens, I can't be too close or the camera will not take the picture.

I think this one worked out fairly well.

My next recipe came from Cream Puff and is the Caramel Cheesecake with sea salt she posted about recently, another thing made that I drooled over. I don't have the proper sized ramekins for the recipe, and I admit, despite several Daring Baker's challenges involving caramel, that I am still nervous a bit about working with it.

And yes, I burnt the first batch of caramel. Should have taken a picture of the way the caramel ended up when I poured it down the sink. That would have been a cool picture!

The second batch of caramel I did not let get as dark, I probably should have let get a bit more amber, but it still tasted wonderful. And the cheesecake was just what I needed.

I admit, I did forget to give the extra sprinkling of sea salt on the top, but the salt in the caramel was a nice touch. It was good. Alright, I inhaled it.

So this picture had my oldest son laughing, trying to get into the shot. I had set a place mat on the floor at the bottom of my stairs. I had the front entrance light on, as well as the dining room light on, and placed the cheesecake on the mat. Then I climbed up the stairs and zoomed in. He kept trying to put his hands in the picture and would laugh whenever he heard me click. Eventually I showed him how close I was zooming in and how his hands were no where to be seen.

I added a few pictures to my Flickr account recently, as well as adding the link to the side of my blog, so feel free to take a look at the pictures there and let me know what you think. Alot of the pictures on there are from my little Nikon but if you click on a picture it will tell you which camera it was taken with.

Hopefully I will get another lens soon, and not have to be 6 feet back from something when taking a picture. Unless I want to be.

Heat large pot over medium high heat. Melt butter with the olive oil, and saute the onions and broccoli stalks until softened, about 8 minutes. Add the garlic and saute for an additional 2 minutes. Add stock, reserved broccoli florettes and nutmeg, as well as half of the salt, cover and simmer for 10 minutes, or until the broccoli is tender, but not over cooked. Reduce temperature. Using a slotted spoon, remove half of the broccoli florettes to a bowl. Puree the soup in the pot using a hand immersion blender until mostly smooth. Add the cream, the balance of the salt and the pepper and stir together. Return the broccoli to the pot. Taste, adjust seasonings and check the temperature. When it is all where you want it to be, ladle into soup bowls and sprinkle with cheese and enjoy.

I've been felling very down and out lately. Functioning but not happy.

To help me break out of this, or at least escape for awhile, I called on a good friend of mine, Bam Bam's Mom, and said I needed to go out and have some fun. What we did was up to her, but I needed out!

She did not disappoint!

Knowing how much I enjoy food and how much of a foodie I've become, BBM, decided to take me out for a blind menu tasting, right here in Ottawa! (She told me she had been looking for a Molecular Gastronomy tasting but had just missed it by a few days - who knew we could do this in Ottawa?) I would never have thought of looking for this here, but she found a hotel, Brookstreet, whose restaurant Perspectives, had a menu tasting for us to try.

So here is the story of our meal that night.....

Our server let us know that the menu was heavy on seafood, something neither of us objected to.

It started with a lobster consume, with watercress, and a lobster spring roll, served with a black, Hawaiian sea salt.

The consume was very salty and reminded me of miso soup, which I like. The spring roll was crispy on the outside while the lobster was cold on the inside. Dipped into the black sea salt on the plate, it was wonderful! And the salt drizzled all over the watercrest reminded me how long I had been wanting to try watercress and how much I would enjoy it on my own sandwiches.

The next course was an oyster treat. It started with an oyster in the shell on one side of the plate, and some honey chipotle tempura oysters at the other end of the plate. At the bottom of the glass of oysters was a type of seaweed with some sesame oil (at least that is what we thought), which gave a nice balance of acid with the sweetness of the oysters.

In between these two oysters was what was called an "Eight Element Salad." (We repeatedly questioned our server about what each bit was, with my taking both notes and pictures - she was endlessly patient with us and kept her smile the entire evening.) BBM and I tried to dissect that salad, trying to figure out what all the elements were. This is what we came up with: watercress, carrot, red pepper, crispy parsnips, cucumber, cubed pineapple, oil and some kind of vinegar. Even if we were wrong, it was very tasty and even had me eating bits of cucumber.

Continuing on the seafood road, the next dish involved bay sea scallops, served in the shell, with a truffle cream, porcini mushrooms and a tiny bit of pasta. This was a bit difficult to eat, since you had to try and get around the outsides of the bay scallops to get at them inside. But once you did, it was lovely!The crispiness of the parsnips worked very well with the softness of the mushrooms, and the mild truffle cream gave it an elegance and a feeling of indulgence. Just what two tired mother's need on a rainy Saturday night.

The next course was considered to be the main of the evening. It consisted of New Zealand lamb with a blueberry sauce, a cauliflower puree and cold beef cheeks in natural juices. There was supposed to be a blueberry blue cheese with it, which my friend could not eat, but our plates were mixed up and she got the cheese and I did not. I tried the cheese, however, and thought ugh, then went oops - I am allergic to penicillin and probably should not have been eating blue cheese, just in case. So ignoring that - the lamb was meltingly tender, and went well with the blueberry sauce. It took us awhile to identify the puree (okay, we never did) but once told it was cauliflower, we both went, "Oooh, so that's what that is!" The cold beef cheeks were not very cold and tasted very much like a rich, well done stew meat. It was the kind of meat that I could serve to my family with mashed potatoes, provided I didn't tell them what it was!

Now because BBM could not eat the cheese course, the chef very kindly decided not to serve it to her and have her not eat it, but instead substituted something for her. She didn't ask for a substitute, so to me this showed the quality of the restaurant - they wanted her to be happy and enjoy her meal, not have to skip an entire course! So we were both surprised and a bit confused when a different server presented her with this dish - watermelon marinated in triple sec, with a cranberry passion fruit sorbet and a drizzle of very good balsamic around the edge.

I got to try both aspects of this dish - the watermelon was very good, slightly orangy, and did not taste at all like it was loaded in alcohol. The sorbet was wonderful, with the cranberry flavor being predominate. If you hadn't known about the passion fruit, it would have been missed, it was so mild. Very nice.So while she enjoyed that, I got to try the cheese course, something I admit I have never done before. There were three types of cheese, all local from Lanark County; a Highland Blue, Bonnechere Brie and a Flower Station cheese. The cheeses were served with some crusty bread slices, some more watercress with a balsamic drizzle and some cranberry chutney, as well as a bowl of candied walnuts. I skipped the blue cheese and went straight for the brie with the bread. And even though I don't like walnuts, I tried one with the brie and glazes and enjoyed it. The brie was wonderfully creamy and I loved it. The Flower station was a kind of cheddar and was okay but nothing compared to the brie.

Our final course of the evening was the dessert course, which gave a variety of things to try, though I don't think either of us could figure out how they all went together. First there was a pistachio ice cream (with a hidden piece of cake inside, on top of a "plate" of gold-starred chocolate,) next to a lychee and raspberry gelee, and followed up by a pumpkin cheese cake with thin layers of chocolate. The pistachio ice cream was wonderful, with and without the cake, and could have been 3 times larger and I still would have eaten it. The gelee was tart and sweet at the same time, a lovely contrast. The pumpkin cheesecake, I'm sorry, was just a bit wierd. Lots of pumpkin flavor, not much cheesecake. The pistachio ice cream more than made up for the cheesecake though!

By the time we were done, neither one of us was ready to eat anymore. Even though the portions were not full sized, or huge, they were big enough that by the time we were at the end of the courses, we were both full. And it had been a very enjoyable evening, of two good friends, enjoying a culinary adventure and an evening of chatting about life and food! Something I hope to repeat again with BBM!

By the time the evening was over, I was feeling better. Yes, the problems that had been dragging me down are still there, but I felt better able to deal with them. And knew that I had a very good friend willing to let me vent and pour my heart out to her over a the course of an evening and six courses! Thanks BBM!

The children are done trick or treating, and the loot has been checked. Now while my family curls up on the couch and enjoys our yearly viewing of The Nightmare Before Christmas, please enjoy a treat from our home to yours - some lovely chocolate cookies!

The recipe for these cookies comes from Nicole over at Baking Bites, who posted about some very cool mummy cookies some time ago. I've had that page open since then, and finally got them finished late this afternoon. My mummies don't look nearly as good as hers (my white chocolate was not cooperating so I moved on to ghosts covered in a glaze of icing sugar and milk and some plain bats,) but they sure taste good!

I hope you have had a wonderful Halloween!

(And yes, that is my little pumpkin, all dressed up! I didn't have time to carve it up, any further than to pull out the seeds.)

Sorry Andrea! I am really doing this at the last minute but didn't have too much of a choice!

You see, that lovely pumpkin I grew in my backyard grew a friend, and just recently was harvested, just in time to be carved up for Halloween! (The second one did not have enough time to turn completely orange before we got frost and all the vines shriveled up and fit nicely into a yard bag.)

For those of you who like pumpkin for eating and are now sitting there thinking, "Oh what a waste of a good pumpkin - carved into a jack-o-lantern!" Yes, it is true, my little guy is going to get a face, but he was always planted for that purpose and was specifically a jack-o-lantern type pumpkin, not a sweet pie pumpkin, to begin with.

His seeds, however, were always destined for snacking! The only part of a pumpkin that my children like to eat, and every year look forward to. They don't enjoy taking the seeds out of the "guts" but once they've been toasted and salted, they love them!

Simple is how I toast up pumpkin seeds. One year I tried something a bit more spicy and the seeds went untouched until I finally threw them out. But when tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper, then roasted on a sheet pan at 425F until golden and crispy? They are a hit!

Can't wait to see what everyone else comes up with from their garden fare! It has gotten a little to cold for gardens here in Ottawa (though it was beautiful today and supposed to be even nicer for the kids out trick-or-treating tomorrow night!) so I am looking forward to seeing what comes out of the ground in other, warmer parts of the world!